Tigers make a historic journey from minnows to giant killers

Georgetown, Guyana, Apr 08(UNI) From being called the 'Minnows' to 'Giant Killers', Bangladesh has travelled an extraordinary journey in the past three weeks to change the history book of cricket.

Interestingly, no cricketing minnows had till date stunned two superpowers within such a short span of time in the World Cup history and now if Bangladesh dressing room was to be believed, they want more.

''I leave it to the people to call us minnows or something else but I think we have chance to reach the semi-finals if we can follow the basics and play like today,'' said a modest Habibul Bashar after his side's dramatic victory yesterday.

Bashar's men had already inscribed their names in the annuals of the Bangladesh cricketing history by first throwing out India in the group stage and now jeopardising the chance of the world number one ODI team.

''This victory is bigger and more important for us than that against India. Because first of all it is in the Super Eights and to add to it against the World number one team, so obviously ] it is better,'' added the Bangladesh skipper.

Meanwhile, his counterpart Graeme Smith gave all credit to the Tigers for their impressive show adainst his side. ''Let's not take the credit away from them. They played much better than us and we did not play cricket we are capable of. We gave them chances and they grabbed with both hands. You can not win matches like that,'' said a disappointed Smith.

Bangladesh, had earlier lost its first two matches of the Super Eights against New Zeeland and Australia tamely.

Prasing young batsman Mohammed Ashraful for his match-winning innings, a jubilant Bashar said, ''He (Ashraful) played the innings of his life and it was also the biggest score by any Bangladeshi in the World Cup. He set the match for us and in any wicket 250 is always as a defendable total.'' With yesterday's win over the Proteas, the Tigers have proved that undoubtedly their qualification to the Super Eights was not a fluke, rather by their own performance.

''After the India win, we desperately wanted to win our Super Eight matches to prove that we are not just push overs,'' said the Bangladesh captain, adding that if they continue their form, they will definitely pose a serious threat to England in their next Super Eight match.

''England batsmen are not good players of spin and we have three different spinners in our team. So we have an outside chance of making it to the semis if we can play like this and defeat England,'' he said.

UNI